Perfection by Any Other Name
by Tabs14
Summary: "He was as she saw him" A short one-shot about Neji and Tenten. Just a cute little story about friendship with hinting of romance, if you're reading for smut or fluff, you could be disappointed. R&R!


**Hey guys! First story coming back from my long ass hiatus (4 years holy shit!) But I hope I "still got it" let's see! I haven't watched the anime in a while but this is really the only pairing I used to write that still speaks to me PLEASE correct any errors I make (misspelling of names or jutsus) I want to improve and get as good as I used to be at this! Any advice is greatly accepted, just no flames please, constructive criticism usually works better anyways**

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Neji was as she saw him. The definition of beauty, the way his hair fell cascaded like a dark chocolate waterfall down his back left her at a lack of words. His pale purple eyes, though pupil-less, stared into her soul with every second of accidental eye contact during sparring. As much as Tenten hated to admit to herself; she was in love with him. The way he moved with fluid grace, the strong posture he had. Everything about him screamed perfection; but he wasn't. She had seen the scars he wore with shame; bore from his father in fits of fury when he wasn't quite good enough. She knew he knew nobody in his compound loved him, maybe Hinata but Tenten doubted that meant much to him. She wanted to show him, to prove herself worthy of breaking down his walls. But mostly, and she blushed at the thought, she wanted him to love her too… The thought of him holding her close to him without holding a blade to her throat (sparring) made the butterflies in her stomach go wild. She had to find a way to tell him.

The next day at training the groups were split for one on one sparring, Guy wanted to work with Neji on controlling his byakugan and Tenten was paired with Lee for some hand on hand. Tenten was disappointed but didn't want to make it blatantly obvious that she would rather spar with Neji, not just because she felt the need to confess her feelings but also because he was the only boy on her team who wasn't afraid to completely kick her ass. Guy would stop the minute she hit the ground, as any respectable leader would, thus allowing her time to get back up and dominate him with her Heavenly Chain of Destruction jutsu. Lee and her were pretty evenly matched so sometimes he wouldn't even get her to the point of her having to use anything BIG. Neji on the other hand would beat her so bad she couldn't get up, which led to some amazing moments of him having to carry her sore and bruised body home after training since her house was on the way from the training grounds to the Hyuga compound. She loved sparring with him.

Although Lee didn't kick her ass today, He did get manage to cover her head to toe in the most disgusting, foul smelling muck she had ever seen (and smelled) in her life. She chose to spar with him by a small pond, which turned out to have become a revolting marshland overnight due to the torrential downpour Kahona was enduring the last couple weeks. She still beat his ass though, no question.

"Are you still walking with me today?" Neji asked when her and Lee came back, obviously trying not to cover his nose.

"Not today," she said, trying to hide her disappointment, she liked being around Neji as much as possible "I have to go wash this off somewhere.."

"Don't you have a shower at your apartment?" he asked quizzingly

"Yeah but if I walk in there smelling like this it'll reek for weeks, I'm probably just going to go find a stream or river or something.."

"Oh... I see" Why did he sound disappointed?

"Yeah. Well I better go, see ya tomorrow" As she turned to walk away he said

"Wait, I'd better go with you, god knows who you'll find doing unmentionable things around here, I... um... wouldn't want you to get mentally scarred... My byakugan will help, plus Guy wanted me to practice using it for longer periods of time" He seemed to be stammering; she wondered why considering he was always so cool and collected. He started walking towards the woods without her.

"Well alright, if it'll get you some practice in" she smiled and jogged to catch up with him

As they arrived into a small clearing after a rather unfortunate encounter with Kiba and some girl in the last pond they found. It was awkward to say the least. Tenten had now officially seen more of Kiba than she had ever wanted to. As she approached the clear blue water Neji spoke up for the first time during their walk

"Tenten can I tell you something?" He asked inquisitively. Tentens breath hitched and got caught in her throat

"Of course." She said "you can tell me anything" she was so nervous it was ridiculous

"I just wanted… to thank you" She had to fix her composure so she didn't look completely taken aback by his words

"f-for what?" she stammered

"For being there for me… I know I'm hard to handle at times due to my… antisocial attitude... But that hasn't seemed to deter you once… so... thank you... for being my friend… and for not giving up on me." By the end of his monologue Tenten was 99.9% sure her jaw was on the ground. Did Neji just confess something to her? About being friends? There was no way she was going to take this for granted. Screw her confession. It could wait until their friendship blossomed more; she was getting closer to him though. Which was perfectly ok with her.

Fin

**A/N: Tell me what you guys thought! Love? Hate? Want a sequel? Review and subscribe! It'd mean a lot to me Thanks guys!**


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